Chapter 48
Ban Yunsaeng (1)
Gansu, where Mount Qilian was located, lay within the territory of the Cheokcheon Alliance.
A large number of the martial artists Baek Socheon encountered along the way belonged to the Cheokcheon Alliance.
Of course, that did not mean everyone living there followed the unorthodox path. The Cheokcheon Alliance merely exerted influence over the region and controlled it through its local branches.
The same was true of the Murim Alliance’s territory.
Even someone running an inn directly in front of the Murim Alliance headquarters could secretly be an unorthodox martial artist. They simply lived while concealing that fact.
Baek Socheon traveled as inconspicuously as possible.
Rather than taking the main roads, he followed narrow paths or cut directly across mountains. He even carried the heavy leather pack he normally used during training.
In other words, he turned the journey itself into training.
Since Baek Socheon had decided to travel without causing trouble, he encountered no problems before reaching the foot of Mount Qilian.
What concerned him more was the possibility of being followed.
The Cheokcheon Alliance or the Alliance Leader’s Palace might have assigned someone to watch him separately.
Fortunately, Baek Socheon possessed an innate sense sharp enough to detect even Cheon Geuk when she concealed herself.
He was certain that no one had followed him.
The grotesque woman had said that Ban Yunsaeng had gone into seclusion on Mount Qilian.
If he was still alive, he had to be living somewhere within these mountains.
Finding a single person in the vast Mount Qilian range was truly as difficult as searching for a needle on a beach.
‘If fate allows it, I will meet him.’
Baek Socheon shouldered his leather pack and began climbing.
He was capable of scaling cliffs with his bare hands, so no matter how rugged the terrain was, climbing the mountain itself posed little difficulty.
After reaching the summit, he surveyed his surroundings.
Numerous peaks surrounded the main summit.
‘Where in the world are you?’
Five days passed after Baek Socheon arrived at Mount Qilian.
He climbed the summits of several peaks and carefully searched for any sign of human presence.
He encountered hunters and herb gatherers along the way.
However, he did not ask them about Ban Yunsaeng.
Since he had no idea what sort of relationship they might have with the man, carelessly asking questions could cause Ban Yunsaeng to disappear without a trace.
By the tenth day of wandering through Mount Qilian, Baek Socheon began to feel discouraged for the first time.
‘Perhaps I may not be able to meet him.’
If he had enough time, he would have searched the mountains for months or even years.
But he could not afford to do that.
Naturally, inner demons began creeping into his mind.
‘Perhaps the very fact that I came looking for Ban Yunsaeng proves how weak my heart has become.’
‘How could complete bodily rebirth possibly be achieved through an artificial grand art?’
‘I should be spending this time strengthening my body instead.’
Even after sinking into deep self-reproach, he ultimately forced himself onward.
‘No. I must not give up until the very end.’
Then one day, while combing through the mountains, he was wandering through a forest in search of human traces as usual when a sharp, pungent odor assaulted his nose.
‘This smell…’
He had smelled something similar before.
It was the scent of an extraordinarily powerful poison.
Curious, Baek Socheon headed in the direction of the odor.
Since he possessed a body immune to all poisons, he had no reason to fear it.
After pushing through the undergrowth, he discovered a flower he had never seen before.
Its petals were as red as blood, while something white—either a fruit or a bud—grew at its center.
A snake lay coiled around the plant.
The poisonous odor was coming from that snake.
‘A White-Horned Golden-Line Snake!’
The white protrusion on its head resembled an antenna more than a horn, and a golden line ran along its body.
Among practitioners of poison arts, the poison core of a White-Horned Golden-Line Snake was a priceless treasure they longed to obtain even in their dreams.
‘Then what is that flower?’
It was clearly no ordinary plant.
Rare flowers and extraordinary herbs guarded by spiritual creatures were usually every bit as valuable as the creatures’ inner cores.
The pleasant fragrance of the flower mixed with the snake’s poisonous scent, producing an odor unlike anything Baek Socheon had ever smelled.
The White-Horned Golden-Line Snake raised its head, ready to lunge at him at any moment.
Baek Socheon was not particularly tense.
Not only was he immune to all poisons, but he was also confident that he could evade the attack of a snake, no matter how extraordinary the creature might be.
At that moment, he sensed someone approaching from behind.
When the person drew close, Baek Socheon abruptly turned.
Sensing no killing intent, he did not attack. Instead, he seized the person’s wrist and neck and subdued him.
Baek Socheon flinched.
The person was an old man.
He could not explain why, but the instant he saw him, his instincts told him that this was the very person he had been searching for.
‘Ban Yunsaeng!’
At that moment, the White-Horned Golden-Line Snake lunged from behind.
Swoosh!
“Move! You must not let it bite you!”
At the old man’s shout, Baek Socheon leaped backward with him and avoided the snake’s attack.
The two of them ran together until they were well away.
The White-Horned Golden-Line Snake pursued them briefly before returning to its original position.
“Whew. What a relief. If it had bitten you, the Eternal-Life Poison-Oblivion Herb would not have borne fruit this year.”
It turned out that the old man had not shouted because he was worried about Baek Socheon.
He had been worried about the snake and the plant called the Eternal-Life Poison-Oblivion Herb.
Even so, Baek Socheon asked him politely,
“Are you perhaps Hero Ban?”
“Did you come looking for me? That’s right. I am the man called Yunsaeng. Who are you?”
Baek Socheon had expected him to seem mad, but Ban Yunsaeng appeared perfectly normal.
He did not even make any effort to conceal his identity.
“My name is Baek Socheon.”
“Baek Socheon?”
Seeing the disbelief on his face, Baek Socheon clarified his identity.
“If hearing my name made you think of the Murim Alliance’s God of War, then yes, I am that man.”
“Are you truly him? How am I supposed to believe that?”
“You will believe me once I explain how I found this place.”
“How did you learn of it?”
“Hero Goe told me.”
“Ah!”
At those words, Ban Yunsaeng believed that the man before him was indeed Baek Socheon.
The grotesque woman was the only person who knew his whereabouts.
She would never have revealed them to just anyone, but she might have done so for Baek Socheon.
Furthermore, she was imprisoned in the Murim Alliance’s underground prison. Only someone of Baek Socheon’s standing could have met her there.
“Rather than standing around here, let us go to my home.”
“Very well.”
Through an extraordinary herb and a spiritual creature, Baek Socheon had met Ban Yunsaeng in a way he had never expected.
***
Ban Yunsaeng’s residence was a cave.
Protruding rocks and tangled vines made the entrance extremely difficult to locate.
Baek Socheon thought that if he had not met the old man today, he might never have found him.
Compared to its entrance, the inside of the cave was remarkably spacious.
There was a wooden bed, cabinets, and even a dining table.
Books were piled everywhere.
Every one of them concerned poisons, extraordinary herbs, the human body, meridians, rare medicinal ingredients, and similar subjects.
“Here. This is liquor I brewed myself from fruit. Would you care for a cup?”
“I would.”
Baek Socheon drank the liquor Ban Yunsaeng offered him.
It was sweet and pleasantly flavored.
“Is Old Goe still alive?”
“He is imprisoned underground, but he remains as vigorous as ever.”
“If that man saw this liquor, he would praise it to the heavens and drink it all.”
The two of them had once become friends through alcohol.
Ban Yunsaeng enjoyed brewing liquor, while the grotesque woman enjoyed drinking it. That was how their relationship had begun.
Although Ban Yunsaeng maintained a friendship with one of the Ten Great Villains, it had been a pure bond formed through alcohol.
Ban Yunsaeng himself was a physician and scholar who had spent his entire life researching complete bodily rebirth.
“You need not worry about his supply of alcohol. In exchange for telling me where you were, he is probably drinking every day now.”
“Oh, is that so? Well done. Very well done.”
“When I return, I should tell him that you are such a kind person.”
“What do you mean?”
“He asked whether I truly believed the nonsense of a madman like you.”
Baek Socheon smoothly turned the conversation toward complete bodily rebirth.
Since Ban Yunsaeng had heard the phrase “a madman’s nonsense” countless times before, he merely smiled and asked,
“What about you? Do you believe complete bodily rebirth can be achieved through a grand art?”
To be honest, Baek Socheon did not.
He did not believe that someone’s skeleton and skin could truly be remade.
Even if such a thing were possible, he believed it would require an extraordinary fortuitous encounter rather than an artificial grand art.
Then why had he come looking for Ban Yunsaeng?
Because the complete bodily rebirth Baek Socheon believed in had a different meaning.
Even if his bones remained unchanged and his skin stayed the same, if his destroyed dantian could heal and allow him to use internal energy again, that alone would be complete bodily rebirth to him.
“I believe that madman’s nonsense.”
When Ban Yunsaeng realized that Baek Socheon was speaking sincerely, an unusual light appeared in his eyes.
Throughout his entire life, not a single person had genuinely believed him.
Everyone had either mocked him or pitied him.
“You truly believe complete bodily rebirth is possible?”
“If I did not, I would never have come here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Please grant me complete bodily rebirth.”
Ban Yunsaeng was startled.
He had suspected it might be the reason, but he had not truly expected Baek Socheon to ask him to perform the procedure.
“Use me to prove to the world that you were right.”
Ban Yunsaeng remained silent for a while.
It was the lifelong dream he had never fulfilled.
He had not abandoned it, but deep down, he knew it was a dream he might never achieve.
“But why you?”
“Examine my body.”
Baek Socheon extended his hand.
Ban Yunsaeng held his wrist as though checking his pulse.
He sent a thread of internal energy into Baek Socheon’s body and examined his condition.
“I heard rumors that you had lost your internal energy… So they were true. But what happened to your body? This is no ordinary physique.”
“I trained.”
Ban Yunsaeng’s eyes changed.
“To endure the grand art, the body itself must be strong. In that respect, your body is in ideal condition.”
The harsh training Baek Socheon had endured for the past three years suddenly felt as though it had all been preparation for this day.
This was not the sort of bodily rebirth that occurred when a dying man fell into a pond inhabited by a Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp or awakened in a cave where Empty Azure Stone Milk flowed.
It was complete bodily rebirth performed entirely through an artificial grand art.
The subject needed the physical endurance to survive a grueling procedure lasting several days.
“That is not all.”
“What else is there?”
“I read the book you wrote. It said that to undergo complete bodily rebirth, one must not only possess a powerful body but also have a constitution resistant to poison.”
“That is correct.”
It was the reason every previous attempt had failed.
None of the subjects had been able to withstand the poison.
Whenever Ban Yunsaeng used an antidote, the grand art failed. Whenever he proceeded without one, the subject died.
“I possess a body immune to all poisons.”
Ban Yunsaeng’s pupils trembled.
Very few people knew that Baek Socheon possessed such a constitution.
“You said earlier that if the snake had bitten me, the Eternal-Life Poison-Oblivion Herb would not have borne fruit. Is that herb perhaps one of the ingredients required for complete bodily rebirth?”
“That is correct. When the Eternal-Life Poison-Oblivion Herb is ready to bear fruit, the White-Horned Golden-Line Snake injects its venom into it. Only through that process can the herb produce fruit.
“You must consume that fruit and survive its poison.”
Baek Socheon finally realized that the white object he had seen earlier was not a flower bud but a fruit.
“I can endure the poison of the Eternal-Life Poison-Oblivion Fruit.”
Ban Yunsaeng was a man who believed in fate.
Had he not believed in it, he could never have continued his research throughout his entire life.
He had spent that lifetime studying and wandering throughout the Central Plains in search of spiritual creatures and rare plants related to complete bodily rebirth.
The reason he had secluded himself on Mount Qilian long ago was because he had discovered the Eternal-Life Poison-Oblivion Herb there.
The herb bore fruit once every three years.
However, after he discovered it, the White-Horned Golden-Line Snake had failed to appear, so the herb had been unable to produce fruit.
This year, the snake had finally returned, allowing the plant to bear fruit properly.
And Baek Socheon had arrived at exactly this moment.
How could Ban Yunsaeng not consider it fate?
Especially now, when age had made even climbing the mountain difficult for him.
Ban Yunsaeng asked with a grave expression,
“Can you truly go through with this? If it fails, you may die. I will be honest with you. Everyone who failed to endure the grand art died.”
Baek Socheon answered calmly,
“Even if I do not attempt it, I will die eventually.”
The leader of the Cheokcheon Alliance would kill him in the end.
Baek Socheon had prevented the man from fulfilling his lifelong ambition.
Perhaps the depth of that hatred was precisely why the man could smile at Baek Socheon and allow him to remain alive for now.
When war erupted, he would choose the most dramatic moment imaginable and cut off Baek Socheon’s head in front of everyone.
After staring at Baek Socheon for a long moment, Ban Yunsaeng also made his decision.
“Very well. Let us attempt it.”